As you probably know, White Sun recently won Grammy for best New Age Album. Here we’ll take a look at articles published about White Sun and their amazing music in connection with the Grammy. What a great band White Sun is!
From the press release:
“White Sun, the Santa Monica, California-based band known for their pioneering musical interpretations of yogic mantras, has won 2017 GRAMMY Award in the “New Age” category for their album White Sun II. They were nominated alongside a stellar field of artists including Enya and Vangelis.
White Sun’s lead singer and songwriter Gurujas accepted the trophy, saying: “We just want our music to make something better for somebody somewhere. And it’s our dream to see this world become a more beautiful place. For anyone who shares in that dream with us, thank you, we love you and let’s do better.”
Showcasing the musical agility of the band, the songs of White Sun II emphasize the healing vibrations of mantra through the clear, profound vocals of White Sun’s lead singer and songwriter, Gurujas. Band members Harijiwan and two-time Emmy-winner Adam Berry create the richly layered, rhythmic foundation that takes listeners beyond the everyday realm to a place of inspired, energized experience.
The ancient mantras that are the lyrics of White Sun’s songs are capable of removing negative thoughts and emotions simply by listening to them. The music is so effective at making people feel better that the White Sun II album was recently added to the official 2016 curriculum of University of Southern California (USC), as part of a new health and wellness program to help students deal with increasing levels of stress on campus. ”
From LA Times:
The Santa Monica-based trio White Sun has a curious, only-in-L.A. backstory, having been co-founded by Adam Berry, best known in the biz for his four seasons as the music director for the animated show “South Park.”
They can add “Grammy-award winning” to that biography. The group bested a competitive field including Enya and Vangelis to earn the New Age album Grammy.
From India Times:
“A day after they won a Grammy for its latest eponymous album, music group White Sun found a fresh fanbase in Punjab as listeners tuned into their website to find words they had counted on their entire lives.
As many as 10 compositions in the album, ‘White Sun II’, are either from the Guru Granth Sahib or have been penned by the 10th Sikh master, Guru Gobind Singh, and a part of daily prayers. The 11th composition is an instrumental based on the Sikh expression for God – Akaal.
The award was received by lead singer Gurujas Khalsa, a turbaned Sikh of American origin, alongside band co-founder and two-time Emmy-winning music composer Adam Berry and instrumentalist Harjiwan, a turbaned disciple of the late Harbhajan Singh Yogi aka Yogi Bhajan, who started propagating Sikhism among Americans half a century ago.”
Read the complete article here.
From DailyBruin.com – from before the award seremony:
“Kaushal is an adjunct associate professor of the ethnomusicology course “Music of India” at the Herb Alpert School of Music, and he performed in White Sun’s 2017 album “White Sun II,” nominated for Best New Age Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
The album’s New Age music, which consists of richly layered instrumentals and soothing vocals to channel feelings of serenity, contains parallels from the classical Indian music style that Kaushal has studied since he was a child.”
Also, be sure to check out our review of White Sun’s materworks – and White Sun’s homepage.